Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi Everyone,
I'm not entirely sure why it's taken me so long to get round to posting in here.
I'm Dan, I'm 43 and I was diagnosed 2 years ago after a big episode of severe depression. I regard finding out I was Autistic as probably the most liberating thing to have happened to me. I made a conscious decision to stop masking and just be me. Since then my life with my family, wife, children, work and colleagues has got so my better.
I still have my bad days,but nowhere near what they used to be like simply because I've stopped trying to be something I wasn't meant to be.
I was lucky in some respects because I was already having therapy with the suggestion came up, she did the preliminary screening. When I went back to my GP a lot of the work had already been done. Brighton neuro-behavioural unit decided there was no point in going through it again and sent me straight to the final assessment.
The funny thing is by the time I got to that I was more worried about being told I wasn't autistic than being told I was.
Masking is exhausting and a waste of energy in my view. If people cant accept me for who I am it's their problem not mine.
Hi Badgers - and welcome!
You felt the same sense of liberation that I did, then. People often talk about 'behaving more autistically' after diagnosis. I think that a lot of that is simply about being more our true selves than being what the rest of the world wants and expects.
Good for you.
Still on the waiting list myself but I agree with what you say about stopping masking and being yourself, I think I spent too long doing that, now I've found my life is a little easier because I don't 'pretend'